


Truth Be Told

by bibliomaniac



Category: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Genre: (I highly doubt that comes as a surprise from me by now), Damien is incredibly oblivious, Fluff, M/M, Mutual Pining, One-Sided Attraction, Youtuber AU, and then, at least at first
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-02-10 09:07:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12908751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bibliomaniac/pseuds/bibliomaniac
Summary: Damien Bloodmarch has never been able to lie, so when his best friend Mary asks him who his favorite Youtuber is, he has to tell the truth: his favorite Internet personality is Craig Cahn, handle youcahndoit, a fitness vlogger with wonderful muscles and a heart of gold. Which would be fine--Damien can endure some ribbing--if this question weren't asked on a livestream for his own Youtube channel in front of hundreds of people, and if his fans hadn't tweeted the livestream in question to Craig, and if Craig hadn't seen it.But it did, and they did, and he did, and as it turns out, not being able to lie is the best thing that will ever happen to Damien.(But not for a while.)aka the, as always, very self-indulgent cahnmarch youtuber au





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MissyScarlet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissyScarlet/gifts).



> lol scarlet and i started throwing around this idea a while back and i finally started writing it so. here it is
> 
> damien as a youtuber is basically a mixture of john maclean and aurelio voltaire and is therefore the cutest darn thing

Damien Bloodmarch is and always has been a terrible liar. That had been one of the nuggets of wisdom his father had bestowed upon him before he left—“Dear, you really shouldn’t lie. You’re just not very good at it. But,” he had added, ruffling the hair of a teary-eyed five-year-old Damien, “That’s not such a bad thing, either!”  
  
Damien, now forty, is beginning to think his father was wrong. Not about him being a bad liar, but about his inability to lie being a positive thing. Specifically, he _really_ wishes right now that he could lie on this livestream right now to his expectant best friend and to the hundreds of people watching about who his favorite Youtuber is. He could say so many things—any number of reputable makeup artists, for example, or any of the prominent vloggers in the Goth community. God, he could say he loved the Food Network channel and it would be less humiliating. 

But instead he squeezes his eyes shut and squeaks out, “Craig Cahn,” because he’s a terrible liar and that is the absolute truth. 

(And while he thinks to himself that his father was very much wrong as Mary guffaws at him and ekes out, “The shirtless fitness vlogger? _God,_ Damien, I never _knew,_ ” as he hides his face in his hands and moans, “He has good tips!”, as Mary responds “I _bet_ there’s a tip of his you’d like—” “ _Mary!_ ”—he’ll soon realize that his father was right: being a bad liar was, in this case, the best thing to ever happen to him.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.)

To backtrack: Damien Bloodmarch was thirty-four when he discovered Youtube for himself. Not that he hadn’t _heard_ of it before, of course; Lucien was twelve at the time and spent a good portion of time on the site, and he had politely watched over the shoulder of a coworker or two as they showed off a ‘hilarious’ video. But he had never really understood the appeal until he had been looking for reviews on a newly-released shade of eyeshadow and had found a Youtube video about the very same shade.

It’s as good as anything, he had thought, and he had clicked the video, and then he had watched a few other videos by the same individual out of curiosity, and then some related videos, and, well…it spiraled from there.

It took him a few months to gather the courage to post a video of his own, blushingly going through his daily makeup routine, and it had taken another few months for him to gain any kind of following, during which time he expanded his videos from makeup to his thoughts about being both father and Goth, about being a single parent, about literature and gardening and whatever caught his fancy. But eventually people started to take notice, and it wasn’t terribly long before he had a comfortable niche in a corner of Youtube.

Craig Cahn didn’t come until later, and to this day Damien still can’t really remember what sequence of related videos brought him to a very _different_ corner of Youtube, this one occupied by fitness specialists. Damien was now thirty-nine, though, and he had been looking for ways to diversify his exercise routine (which was, _despite_ Mary’s crude insistence, _not_ a euphemism for wanting to have sex) so he idly clicked on a video titled HOW TO GET MORE OUT OF YOUR WORKOUTS!!, with a thumbnail displaying a rather nice set of abdominal muscles.

As it turns out, the muscles were not a stock photo as he had supposed, and they were also attached to probably the most breathtaking man he’s ever seen. He blinks at the computer screen, color rising in his cheeks, and thinks, _Dear God._

The man, he discovers through a bit more video-watching, is named Craig Cahn, Youtube handle youcahndoit, age thirty-five. He uploads mostly fitness videos (in which he is always either shirtless or ends up shirtless at some point), cooking tutorials (in which he is shirtless an unnecessary amount of the time, in Damien’s opinion), and videos with his daughters (in which his shirt stays, blessedly, on). It takes him a few days, but he goes back to the beginning of Craig’s channel—it had only been started a year ago, not that long a backlog, really—and then makes his way to the newest one posted. He finds himself charmed by Craig’s earnest nature, his kindness, his sincerity, the way he obviously loves his children—he’s even charmed by his unequivocally terrible sense of humor. He spends at least three minutes in a video once on the floor laughing because a viewer sent him a picture of baby spinach at a buffet labeled as ‘spinch’, and Damien’s heart had twisted in an uncomfortable manner, because God his laugh is beautiful, but also God he shouldn’t be thinking like this.

Craig is, after all, unattainable, for several reasons. First off, he’s recently out of a marriage—only two months, actually; Damien sees the videos posted from that time and longs to smooth the pained smile off of Craig’s face, tell him it’s okay to cry—and only an utter cad would take advantage of that emotional instability. Second, Damien isn’t exactly _desirable,_ as his ex-husband had made very clear all those years ago and as his lack of suitors in the years since had made clear to this day. And third, for God’s sakes, he doesn’t even _know_ the man, not really. He only knows the man onscreen, and while he has no reason to doubt Craig’s sincerity, he also knows from personal experience that Youtube could never capture everything.

Oh, and fourth, an addendum that makes all of this reasoning even more patently ridiculous, is that Damien has never even spoken to Craig, never commented on one of his videos, and that he doesn’t know where Craig lives, and that basically all of this amounts to a celebrity crush and he shouldn’t think of it.

He does think of it, though, and he watches Craig’s newly uploaded videos religiously—“Lucien, he gives good advice about maximizing your daily exercise, and I find it valuable!” “Sure, Dad, and I bet his abs have nothing to do with it either—” “They _don’t!”_ —and a year passes, and one day during one of his monthly charity livestreams a donor asks him who his favorite Youtuber is, and, well.

The chat becomes a bit unmanageable after that. _Do you looooove him? Awww, you’re so gay. What’s so good about him? Have you guys ever talked? Have you guys ever boned, I think is the question here. Come on guys be respectful. Lol that’s a hopeless cause if there ever was one. Ugh, disappointing—you’re just one of those shallow fans. Craig x Damien 2k17. What would be their ship name? You do know loving a Youtuber is pointless right?_

“Come now, really,” he says, having regained a fraction of his composure. “Just because someone is your favorite Internet personality doesn’t mean you’re in love with them.” (That’s a deflection, and he is a little bit in pre-love with Craig, but that’s not important.)

_I’m in love with you! Lol deflection. You blushed though—totally a crush at least. Why is he your favorite?_

He pauses thoughtfully, tapping his chin. “Why is he my favorite? I suppose…he just has a way of making you feel good.”

Mary, who has been ordered to hush, raises an amused eyebrow. Damien catches it out of his peripheral vision and huffs.

“Not like _that, goodness,_ Mary, not everything is an innuendo. I mean…like he makes you feel positive about yourself and the state of things. He doesn’t care whether it’s your first time picking up a weight or whether you’re a seasoned bodybuilder, or whether you’re familiar with Korean cuisine or not, or—he makes everyone feel welcome and like they can accomplish what they set out to do. I find that comforting. And when he’s with his kids,” he says, a slow smile creeping on his face. “He’s always so encouraging and kind. There’s no mistake they can’t come back from, no fall that can’t be risen above and made into a learning opportunity. He cares so much about them, about everything he’s involved in. It makes me want to do better and be better.”

There’s a silence as Damien stares off wistfully at a point on the wall, when Mary says, sounding just as amused as she looks, “Damn, tell him how you really feel.”

Damien scrunches up his nose and throws a small pillow at her. “I do believe I told you to hush, and anyway, you’ve waxed rhapsodic about how fetching Hannah Hart looks more than once.” 

“Fetching is not the word I used,” Mary says loftily, “and you are not proving your point well if you feel the way about Craig Cahn that I do about Hannah Hart.”

He purses his lips, looking away, then says with a false brightness, “Hey, who of you here want me to make Mary look like a proper Goth?”

“Dames, I left that behind in college,” she groans, but there’s a twinkle in her eye that says, _this isn’t over_ \--and as it turns out, she's right.


	2. Chapter 2

Mary being right is, admittedly, somewhat manufactured. Someone, who Damien will never find out was Mary with a sockpuppet account but is absolutely Mary with a sockpuppet account, tweets Craig a link to Damien’s livestream starting at the applicable time, and then more people tweet it to him, and eventually it’s enough people tweeting at him that he takes notice.

And _boy,_ does he take notice, because Craig doesn’t know whether he’s a good liar or not, but he’s not even going to _bother_ lying to himself that this guy isn’t attractive, or that he’s not incredibly flattered by his kind words. Sure, the guy clearly has a bit of a crush, but that’s not a crime, and anyway, it’s sweet on him.

Pretty much everything is sweet on this guy, Craig soon discovers as he binge-watches a month’s worth of videos—the way he dresses down to make over another person but dresses like the lead in a vampire film to make up himself, the way he rambles when he’s enthusiastic about something, the way he lights up when he shows the camera a new purchase or talks about gardening or his son or—really anything, he seems to be happy about things frequently. The way, even, he pronounces ‘film’, like ‘fill-um’, which is absolutely not the way it should be pronounced, but makes Craig smile fondly anyway. Everything about him is endearing, and Craig wants to know more. Not romantically, he tells himself firmly as he searches for Damien’s Twitter account, just as a fellow Youtuber, just as a friend, because Damien may be hot and sweet and into him but Craig doesn’t want a relationship right now.

He puts on another video in the background as he searches, a dramatic reading of some fan-written parody story in which Damien falls in love with an anime ninja, listens as Damien dissolves into peals of laughter, and his heart pangs in a disturbingly familiar way. _Not romantic_ , he tells himself firmly, and hopes he can bring himself to believe it.

He finds Damien’s Twitter and, taking a deep breath, tweets at him. “@nevermoredames, hey, thanks for what you said about me the other day! Winking emojis! Checked out some of your other videos and you seem pretty cool—especially like the one with the bats haha! (Bat emoji, grin emoji.)” He sends it off and waits.

It’s only around thirty minutes until Damien responds, but not in the way he expected. “@youcahndoit, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think your account has been phished! You should change your password as soon as possible : ( ”

Craig blinks, then responds, “Why do you say that? @nevermoredames”

“Someone under your name just tweeted at me @youcahndoit ”

Confused, Craig types back, “Yeah, that was me? @nevermoredames”

“But who is ‘you’? You should really surrender his account, whoever you are, it’s really not very kind of you to do this to Mr. Cahn! : ) ”

God, he’s cute even when he’s infuriating. Craig takes a short video, quizzical smile on his face. “Hey, Damien! Or, uh…Mr. Bloodmarch?” He grins, ducking his head and scratching the back of his neck. “I’m the one who messaged you that thing about your videos, so I don’t think there’s anything to be worried about. Thanks for being concerned though!”

He uploads it, sends it @nevermoredames, then waits.

It’s another hour before he responds, and when he does, it’s just three words: “oh my god @youcahndoit”

Then, in quick succession: “oh my god I’m so sorry I accused you of phishing your own account @youcahndoit” 

“I just never expected you to see…oh my God you saw the livestream I’m so sorry I tend to ramble and…God, thank you for saying that about me and my films, I’d return the sentiment but I think you get the gist already so thank you and I’m sorry and you’re wonderful @youcahndoit” 

And finally, “(which one about the bats) @youcahndoit”

Craig grins even wider and responds, “No need to be sorry! It was kinda cute haha. And it’s the one where you talk about why they’re your favorite animal while knitting a bat. @nevermoredames”

Another short pause, then he is sent another video from Damien’s account, except this one is of Damien curled up on his bed hiding his beet-red face with his hands, whispering delightedly, “He said I was ‘kinda cute’,” giggling happily while rolling back and forth on the bed, then looking up at the camera, eyes going wide and horrified after a moment. “Mary, don’t you dare. Mary. MARY—” The camera cuts off there after what appears to be a short struggle. The video is accompanied with the mysterious caption “Robitussin”, which Craig is going to guess is the result of autocorrect and not an endorsement for the cold medicine.

Another tweet comes in soon thereafter, reading, “damien never changes his lockscreen pin i could send so many videos fortify radishes to”, which Craig is also going to assume is autocorrect.

A tweet from Damien follows five minutes thereafter, saying only, “I think I’ve apologized enough that the words are effectively meaningless by this point, so I have decided to atone by never leaving my house again or speaking to another human being. Good-bye @youcahndoit”

Craig chuckles at his phone. “That’s too bad, I was going to ask you to DM me bat facts haha but I guess if you’re never speaking to another human being… @nevermoredames”

“Well, I suppose I can make an exception for another avowed bat enthusiast! @youcahndoit” Damien sends, and he’s totally wrong about Craig’s motivations there (which are more among the lines of “I’d like to get to know you better and bats seems like a good way to start” and less among the lines of “I am attempting to expand my repertoire of bat facts”, but Craig’s not going to correct him.)

And Craig rewatches that video sent to him, and he traces a finger over the blush on Damien’s cheeks, and his heart pangs again, and when Damien sends him a DM a short while later with barely-repressed incredulity evident in every word devolving into unadulterated glee as he sends his favorite bat facts, Craig isn’t going to even bother anymore denying where he sort of wishes this would go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ridiculous boys
> 
> the fill-um thing is from john maclean who is one of the inspirations for this au and is incredibly precious


	3. Chapter 3

It doesn’t go anywhere.

Not, as shameful as this is to admit, because Craig isn’t _trying._ He talks to Damien pretty much every day now, and every now and then he’ll throw in a flirtatious joke, or he’ll compliment the other man _way_ too much for it to be misconstrued as friendly, or he’ll intimate that they should meet up sometime (it turns out they don’t live _terribly_ far away) and perhaps go to dinner.

All of it seems to bounce off Damien. He tilts his head with a confused smile in that adorable way of his when Craig flirts with him, blushes deeply when complimented and says in a quiet voice, “I’m nothing compared to you,” says with a concerned look that he knows Craig works until late and that he doesn’t want to impose by asking for a late meal. Craig is beginning to wonder if his initial assessment that Damien had a crush on him was inaccurate and that Damien is just this sweet to _everybody._ Does he fuss over his coworkers like he does over Craig? Does he smile at his neighbors, slow and bright, like they hung the stars? Does he go pink in the cheeks for his best friend Mary? Craig _hopes_ not, but honestly at this point he doesn’t know, because there’s no way that Damien hasn’t picked up on _something_ from him by this point.

The worst part is that Craig isn’t above admitting that he likes Damien at this point. Like, _really_ likes him. His heart goes all bubbly inside whenever Damien uploads a new video, or texts him, or talks to him over Skype. He _likes_ him, and while Damien clearly enjoys his company and thinks he’s great, Craig just can’t tell if there’s anything more there. If Damien knew and liked him back, wouldn’t he say something? Wouldn’t he do something? Wouldn’t he want to meet up just as badly? But he doesn’t say anything, or do anything, and they don’t meet up, and the only conclusion Craig can come to is that Damien just doesn’t feel the same way.

That conclusion is, of course, wildly incorrect. Craig doesn’t see the way Damien collapses when they hang up on their nightly video chat, the way he hugs his pillow to him when he falls asleep, the way he stares longingly at their text conversations. He doesn’t hear Damien mumbling, “I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up,” doesn’t hear him chastising himself for falling for someone who just needs a friend, doesn’t hear how his voice changes when he talks about Craig, all suppressed hope and quiet joy. He hasn’t sat by his side as he worries over what Craig is doing, if he’s okay, if he got that care package he sent, hasn’t stroked Damien’s hand as he falls asleep after tearily admitting that he thinks he’s in love even if it’s impossible. And, perhaps most importantly, he hasn’t known Damien long enough to know that someone could propose marriage to Damien and his first instinct would be to ask if they had gotten the right person.

Mary, however, has done all of this, and she’s starting to get a little bit tired. It’s charming the way Craig is falling over himself to try to get Damien to notice his little crush, in a kindergarten kind of way, but it’s also exasperating given that they both have the emotional acuity of a particularly dense piece of lint.

“He said he’d like to run his hands through my hair and feel how soft it is!” Damien texts her one day, obviously pleased.

“oh my god, hes not even subtle” Mary had texted back with the pained expression that she wears so often these days when thinking of her best friend and his inability to take a hint.

“I recommended him my favorite hair products so that he could replicate the experience.”

“he doesnt want dog shampoo, he wants to have sappy missionary sex with you where youre like staring into each other’s eyes and holding hands or some shit”

“ _Mary!_ ”

“i speak only the truth and also you dont get to act scandalized ive seen your ao3 bookmarks”

“This isn’t fanfiction, it’s real life, and in real life it is impolite to say such things about a friend.”

“but not impolite to write down the details of the sex dream where you pegged him?”

“???”

“ive also read your journal”

“I don’t write about my sex dreams in my journal. That would be incredibly uncouth.”

“r u telling me you havent had a sex dream about pegging him”

“…I’m under no obligation to answer that question.”

“so yes. anyway im telling you like ive been telling you for the past several centuries craig is into you and hes bummed out that youre not responding to his blantantly obvious flirting”

“Please, Mary. He only sees me as a friend.”

“a friend with soft-looking hair and sparkly eyes and a beautiful smile and great skin and cool taste in clothes and“

“Those are all friend compliments!”

“and _kissable lips_ , dames, he literally said that”

“I was wearing new lipstick!”

Anyway, the point is Damien is a thoroughly lost cause, so Mary is going to have to try something different.

She texts Craig soon after she makes that decision.

“hey loverboy”

To his credit, he’s a quick return texter. “Haha what? Who is this?”

“you dont remember me after that night of passion? ouch. really thought we had something when you impregnated me”

And then, taking pity on him, she adds a few seconds later, “jk its mary dames bff”

“Oh LOL. Hey, then! How did you get my number?”

“you ask too many questions. but i texted it to myself from dames phone a while back in case i needed it if you must know. anyway i need you to come strip for our boy”

“Huh????”

“dames has been getting requests for a while to do like muscle-accentuating makeup or some crap and youre perfect for it. he’ll barely need to do anything. so come to maple bay and take your shirt off (other articles of clothing negotiable depending on how things go)”

There’s a pause, then, “Why isn’t he asking me himself?”

“you know how moses had to have his brother do his public speaking bc he wasnt good at it”

“Uh?”

“im aaron bitch. now come here and get naked”

Another pause, then a meek, “…Right now?” 

“someones eager. i was thinking more like saturday but hey im not gonna tell you when and where to bare the goods. just stay away from playgrounds you cant take another public indecency charge and if you go on the lam and leave me alone to raise our children again im going to divorce you for real this time”

He doesn’t respond at all to that, which is okay. They’ll work on making him more fun. Mary taps her phone, a devious smile on her face, then texts Damien. 

“so you know how youve always wanted to see ur bfs dick”

And then she waits for Damien’s (no doubt scandalized) response, and she congratulates herself on being a great best friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mary is fun, and dames and craig are both dorks


	4. Chapter 4

Predictably, Damien takes longer to come to the conclusion that Mary is a great best friend, or a good one, or even, for a few moments there, a friend at all. He calls her immediately with a horrified, “What have you done,” and as she explains, he feels behind himself for a chair and, finding none, slumps down to the ground.

“God, Mary, you can’t just _do_ that!” he moans, dragging a hand over his face.

“And yet,” she says with an incredibly irritating calm, “I did.”

“I’ll have to call him immediately and cancel—”

“After he was kind enough to bare it all for you? You’re just going to leave him ass naked in the streets in the middle of January? I knew you were cold, but this is—”

“Mary, _stop!_ It was incredibly inappropriate of you to ask him, and it would be even more inappropriate of me to allow it to happen. You _know_ how I feel about him, asking him to disrobe would be ridiculously disingenuous—”

“So you don’t want to see him in the buff?” she asks, reasonably, as if the thing she has just consigned Damien to was merely the most logical next turn in a game of chess.

“That is _so_ very much not the point!”

“You come up with such delightful turns of phrase when you’re flustered,” Mary says breezily. “In any case, you’re really overreacting. It’s not like you’re asking him to do amateur porn with you.”

Damien makes a strangled noise and contemplates hanging up and then hiding in his closet.

Mary, oblivious to Damien’s distress—or, in all likelihood, fully cognizant of it but choosing to ignore it—continues, “You’re just asking him to take his shirt off. He has his shirt off in, like, 83% of his videos, and I am not just pulling that number out of my ass, either, because I know you counted, and you texted it to me once in a rant about how you were going to become a legislator for the sole purpose of mandating that attractive fitness vloggers wear their shirts a, and I quote, ‘reasonable and single-gay-dad-friendly amount of the time’.”

Damien purses his lips and opts not to respond to that. While he doesn’t remember that specific instance, it doesn’t exactly sound out of character for him. 

“So how is this any different? The shirt will be off, and you will merely be applying makeup to what is underneath the shirt like a professional. Or,” she amends, “a Youtube makeup artist pretending to be one.”

“The difference is that professionals don’t have monumental crushes on the people they are making up,” he mumbles petulantly, but he can feel his resolve crumbling.

“What, do you have a statistic for that as well?” she asks sarcastically, and he sighs as he acknowledges that she has a point. “Look, there doesn’t have to be an ulterior motive here if you don’t bring one into it. You’ve been wanting to meet him without inconveniencing him, right? This is an opportunity for both of you to pool your follower count and show off your strengths.”

“I suppose…”

“No supposing, I’m right,” she says brusquely. “So prep for Saturday and stop being a dork about this. You’ll probably need darker stuff than you usually work with for his skin, yeah?” 

He squirms, then admits reluctantly, “I took a swatch from one of his more color-accurate videos to the shop a while ago. For…in case.” 

Her resulting cackling almost makes him feel bad about it, and definitely lies to rest any remaining thoughts in his mind that he might have just been thoroughly played (which, of course, he had).

Saturday comes both far too quickly and with an agonizing slowness as Damien frets over meeting Craig in person for the first time, and also meeting Craig’s abdominal muscles in person for the first time. (God. Surely there was a better way of putting that.) He fusses so much on the subject that Lucien ends up putting a blanket ban on Craig’s name in the house, and also on the phrase ‘abdominal muscles’ ( _“God,_ Dad, nobody even _says_ that! Call them abs like every single other non-alien on this planet!” “Doesn’t that imply that you have met an alien who calls them by their proper name?” “Not one who’s lived to talk about it.” “You’ve _killed_ an alien who calls them by their—” “Oh my _God,_ Dad, _drop it,”_ Lucien had hissed, leaving Damien a bit embarrassed and a lot concerned about whether his son had legitimately committed an alien murder or not).

On the day of, Lucien leaves for a friend’s house—his choice, not Damien’s—and Mary comes over to help Damien set up his filming environment. He had actually rather thought that she was going to stay for moral support, mostly because she had promised to do so, but she got a text and then a sudden need to see his flower garden, and it was only after a knock had sounded at the door that he remembers that it is theoretically possible to hop the fence around his backyard and cut through Robert’s rather messy yard and get to Mary’s own house. (It is also possible, as he will later find out, to rig up a few cheap webcams to an app and record everything that is going on in somebody’s house, and to post that footage to Twitter with another sockpuppet account. But that’s later.)

This leaves Damien with a Craig on his doorstep and a cardiovascular event on the horizon, and he clutches his hand to his chest as he puts a hand on the door handle. _Can he do this?_

The knock sounds again, slightly more hesitant this time, which makes up Damien’s mind for him. He’s going to _have_ to. 

He opens the door, and all of the air leaves his lungs, because all of the mental preparation in the world couldn’t get him ready for Craig being right here in front of him. “Craig,” he breathes, face lighting up in a way that is really far too obvious.

Craig grins back, half delight and half barely concealed anxiety and half a feeling he can’t really put a name to but that he might call ‘fondness’. (And, yes, he’s aware that ends up being more than a whole, but for one, Craig has always been more than a whole, and for two, he can’t be expected to be bothered with math when Craig is right here.) Damien is so busy smiling helplessly that he almost forgets to listen to the actual words Craig is saying, which are, “I was almost starting to get worried that I had gotten the wrong oversized Goth house.”

“Oh,” Damien says, still breathless, then, “My apologies. I was trying to find Mary.”

“Oh. Is she going to be here?” Damien thinks he’s probably imagining the flash of disappointment in Craig’s eyes.

“Apparently not,” he says dazedly, and he’s definitely staring and it’s definitely weird by now, and he’s also definitely imagining the relief on Craig’s face.

“Well, then.” Craig laughs, a bit awkwardly. “Hey, Dames.” He gathers Damien into a careful hug, and the most definite thing of all is that this was a bad idea, because Damien doesn’t think he can stand knowing how it feels to have Craig’s arms around him and not to have it every day from this point forward.

And it’s that thought that finally knocks him out of the daze he’s in, even as he hugs back, because he’s not _going_ to. Craig thinks of him as a friend, and that’s all, for now and for always. His smile is maybe a bit dimmer when he steps back, murmurs, “Hey,” but if it is, Craig doesn’t comment on it.

He gives Craig the grand tour, and Craig really does seem sincerely impressed, which Damien appreciates. He gets a bit distracted pointing out his favorite flowers in the garden, tugging Craig a bit thoughtlessly by the hand to each spot, and when he looks back he sees the same strange fondness-feeling in Craig’s smile, and it only gives him the slightest amount of pause before he continues on to the next one. He _will_ not fixate on the sensation of Craig’s hand in his, thank you _very_ much. He’s just being friendly and they are being friends. Yes.

That gets a bit harder to remember when Damien has run out of things to show Craig and it becomes more or less unavoidable that it is time to start filming, and when Craig gives a little abashed chuckle and a shrug and takes his shirt off. Damien smiles blankly at Craig’s pectorals for a few moments, completely frozen, then says in an overly high-pitched voice, “Can you excuse me for a moment?” 

“You okay?” 

“Aces.” With that, he walks mechanically over to his closet and shuts himself inside. 

This was _such_ a bad idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry that there ended up being such a long time between updates! life got a lot in the way and i bet it will continue to do so, but i'll do my best to finish this nonetheless. i cut this off at a sort of awkward spot bc it was getting a bit long and i need to sleep, but hopefully you enjoy these painfully awkward dorks as much as i enjoyed writing them!


	5. Chapter 5

Craig stares at the closet door, blinking, shirt still clutched in his hands. Had Damien just…locked himself in the closet? Was this, like…an ironic gesture? Damien had never been shy about being gay, after all, though he had apparently only ever been with one guy (who was Lucien’s dad, and a total douche, by all accounts). Craig had asked once, even asked him what his type was, which is another one of those things Damien couldn’t _possibly_ have misconstrued. Sort of like how Craig has been barely restraining himself from taking Damien’s hand and kissing it since he got here and then kissing him again except not on his hand this time, and he knows for a fact the longing in his eyes _must_ show, and—

But. Okay. Yeah. Getting distracted. Damien is in the closet in a non-euphemistic sense and it being some kind of act of performance art seems a little bit on the nose even for him.

“Dames?” he calls out hesitantly, well-aware that the inquiry is coming far too late to sound natural. “You, uh…you’re in…seriously, dude, are you okay?”

“There are clothes in here,” Damien calls back, and Craig doesn’t think he’s imagining that it sounds a bit strangled.

“I…guessed that,” Craig says, completely bemused. “Since closets are where most people keep those. And, uh, skeletons.” There’s an even more awkward pause as Craig drags his hand over his face. _God_ he’s a dork. “Not that I’m insinuating you have any in there. I mean if you do let me know. Because being serial murdered would be a real bummer.” _Oh my God Craig stop talking._ “I mean unless they’re, like, the alive kind, in which case being serial murdered by them would still suck, but maybe they could be like the kind in that kid’s movie that came out last year—uh, what’s it called, with the flowers and the guitar—and I don’t think that one involves serial killer skeletons but also I haven’t seen it but, like, Pixar probably wouldn’t—” **_Oh my God you need to shut up._**

“Craig,” comes a voice from the closet, sounding amused and incredibly fond and still a bit nervous, but less so. Plus something else, almost like longing, but Craig is probably projecting there. “Coco, it’s called, and it doesn’t involve serial murder of any kind, and I’m in here because I need to change. This is a lovely waistcoat I’m wearing, and I don’t want to get any product on it.” Another pause as Craig lets out a breath he definitely knew he was holding. “And there’s absolutely a skeleton in here, but only because I witnessed Julien here being terribly rude to a young man in the local coffee shop, and I couldn’t let that stand.” His voice is full of quiet mirth, now, and Craig wishes he could see Damien’s eyes crinkle at the corners like they always do on Skype when he’s making a joke.

“You were just doing your duty to the community,” Craig jokes feebly, having caught up on the ‘changing’ part of the sentence and valiantly not thinking about Damien in any state of undress in close proximity to him. Or. Only thinking just a very little bit.

“I was given a commendation afterwards, I’ll have you know,” Damien’s voice rings out again, low like it gets when he’s really pleased, and Craig thinks that if he hadn’t been kind of in love with Damien before, he would be now.

The door opens then, and Damien is in a really unfairly tight pair of black slacks and a black tshirt and a completely unnecessary flowy black kimono thing, and he looks comfortable and also really attractive, but the reason Craig can’t breathe for a moment mostly has to do with Damien’s eyes still crinkling at the corners and sparkling at him like he’s the most important and funny and brilliant and special person in the world, and Craig doesn’t think that he can be blamed for his eyes going a bit wide, or for his jaw going a bit slack, or for his brain going _there’s no ‘kind of’ about it,_ and, _this is going to hurt so much when you have to leave without him loving you back._

They stare at each other a few moments longer, and Damien’s eyes go from sparkling to sincere, and for a second Craig thinks he’s going to say something. But instead he ducks his head with a breathless little chuckle and then steps away from the door and jokingly gestures to the inside of the closet. “No skeletons,” he says, a bit too tight.

“Yeah,” Craig says eloquently.

Damien nods slowly, then says with a false brightness, “So, we might as well get started. Do you, um, need anything? I could turn up the heat, or, a glass of water…”

“Nah, let’s just start.” The longer he’s here the harder it will be.

Damien nods again, and then makes his way over to his recording setup, fiddling around with it until he’s satisfied. “Ready?” he asks finally. 

“Sure.”

Damien positions himself in front of the camera, and enough in front of Craig to block out his face. “A warm hello to everyone out there! I’m nevermoredames, and I’ve got a shirtless man in my room.” There’s a beat, then Damien mumbles, “That sounded incredibly creepy.” The tips of his ears are bright red as he covers his face. “Start over?”

“Go for it.” Craig is trying valiantly to contain a wide smile.

“Right, um…” He repositions himself. “A warm hello to everyone out there! I’m nevermoredames, and this—” He steps aside with a flourish. “Is…wait, Craig, would you like to introduce yourself?”

“Nah, you can do it.” He’s pursing his lips, now, trying to keep the smile at bay. As much as he knows a good video requires lots of takes, it’s sort of charming to see it firsthand. Damien is always so put-together in his videos.

“Okay. Take three, I suppose.” Another embarrassed half-laugh. He stands in front of the camera and Craig again, and taking a deep breath, he says cheerfully, “A warm hello to everyone out there! I’m nevermoredames, and this—” He steps aside with the same flourish. “Is my incredibly gorgeous and talented friend, youcahndoit.”

“Gorgeous?” Craig asks, and he doesn’t even bother holding back his grin now.

“Oh, hush, you know that,” Damien says, a bit flustered. “Anyway, he’s here today not just to grace my home with his presence—” That’s not true, Craig had come over entirely to see Damien, but Damien doesn’t need to know that— “But also to help me with a video that some viewers have been requesting for some time. Some longtime viewers might recall that a while back I did a video in which I did a very natural daytime look for one of Mary’s friends. Apparently you all were disappointed that I did not, ah…” His brow creases. “Well, I believe one viewer’s words were ‘jump on that’, wherein I can only presume ‘that’ means the opportunity to do a full body makeup—” 

Craig chokes. Damien immediately whirls to him, concerned. “Craig?”

“That’s not what that means, bro,” Craig says, and now he’s the one sounding kind of strangled.

“No?” Damien tilts his head, then shrugs dismissively, apparently having moved on from the thought. “Well, in any case, there have been multiple requests to do a full body male makeup. Craig generously agreed to assist me today in doing so. Obviously I’ll put the appropriate links to his social media down below, as I’m sure any viewers who are not familiar with him will want to become acquainted after this.” He grins, then steps out of frame to grab a tube of something or other. He has all his makeup stuff pretty nearby, just a step away, but not on camera. “Okay, most of this will be voiceover, so I’m just going to show this off for everybody…” He shows the tube in the frame, then continues, “This functions as both a primer and a moisturizer. It’s, um…” He chuckles awkwardly. “It’s best applied with the hands, Craig, if you don’t mind?”

“Nope,” Craig says, probably too fast.

Damien gets some of the product out of the tube, then hesitantly moves his hands towards Craig’s face. “Do let me know if you’re uncomfortable at any point.”

“I’m good, dude.” He’s more than good. Is it really weird for him to be so excited for Damien to get his hands on him even if it’s just to put some lotion or whatever on his face? Probably.

Damien starts rubbing the product into his forehead, motions becoming more sure with time. Cheeks, ears, chin, nose, under his eyes, neck—it’s actually pretty relaxing, or it would be if it weren’t Damien touching him. God, he’s definitely in way too deep here.

They make stilted conversation here and there, even as Damien moves on to—foundation, Craig thinks he said—still with his fingers. Eventually he moves on to using a brush, which Craig is totally okay with and doesn’t mind at all. 

He goes back to using his fingers for a concealer thing, saying with a laugh that he’s going to have to gesture weirdly at Craig’s face, then going back to brushes. Craig feels a bit weird being made up like this, but it’s totally worth it to see the look of intent concentration on Damien’s face. 

Damien has him show off his face every now and then as he puts more and more stuff on, the conversation coming much more naturally now that they have had time to get into their usual comfortable dynamic. They chat about what Hazel has been up to—Damien says laughingly that she and Lucien would probably get along well enough, with their penchant for getting into trouble—and about what they’ve been doing that week, and it’s all very well and good until Damien declares the face finished.

He steps back, motioning for Craig to stand up as he adjusts the camera, then averts his eyes from Craig, blushing. “So, um, what I need to do next is apply some dry oil on your…torso. It’s an aerosol thing.”

“Okay,” Craig says, confused as to why Damien is being cagey about this. 

“And, um, after that, the, uh…the best…method of application is again to work it in with my hands.” The blush intensifies, Damien fidgeting and still not meeting his eyes. 

“Oh.” Oh, God. “Yeah, that’s fine.” 

“I promise I won’t do anything untoward,” Damien says, sounding a bit miserable. “I apologize.” 

“It’s really fine.” He thinks so, anyway. He can totally manage the guy he kind-of-sort-of-totally is in love with rubbing oil into his chest, right? Right. 

“It’ll basically be like a massage,” Damien offers hopefully, and _crap_ that is not a helpful mental image.

“Cool,” Craig says blandly, mostly because he thinks if he shows any emotion right now it might be more like a god-please-just-jump-me-now emotion than a I’m-about-to-get-makeup-on-my-chest emotion, which is obviously not the appropriate feeling to be showing at this time.

Damien sucks in air, then goes over to his tray to get the oil spray and, upon stepping back over, starts spritzing it all over Craig’s torso, neck, and arms. He rubs it into Craig’s arms first, glancing apologetically up at Craig every now and then. Craig is mostly just concentrating on breathing. But then they get to Craig’s collarbone, and then to his pectorals, and Damien’s hands are dangerously close to a sensitive area and the silence is so uncomfortable and Craig really needs a distraction, so he blurts out the first thing on his mind. 

Unfortunately, the first thing on his mind is apparently, “Did you know that there are people on the Internet who think we should get together?” 

In the ensuing silence, there are three things running through Craig’s brain. 

The first is, _You really should have shut up after all._

The second is, _His hand is totally frozen over that aforementioned sensitive area._

The third is just a resounding and emphatic, _**Fuck**._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these incredibly ridiculous boys
> 
> these steps are lightly lifted from john maclean's how to contour muscles with makeup video btw and he does use his hands a lot so i'm not just adding that in for comedic/pining purposes, though it sure does help

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! As always, my tumblr is [anuninterestingperson](http://anuninterestingperson.tumblr.com) even if I haven't posted in ten billion years LOL


End file.
